Ninja Theory begins laying off staff, according to employee posts
GamesIndustry.biz says Ninja Theory has begun laying off employees after Xbox proposed closing the studio and opened a consultation process following failed sale attempts. Xbox said two separate agreements fell through and that it was still exploring other paths forward, but the situation has now moved into redundancies.
Affected staff have been posting on LinkedIn, with IGN identifying gameplay programmer Katrin Mair, technical director Loong-Wei Ding, and performance capture specialist Xoe Suvari among those impacted. Technical sound designer Alessio Mellina, who has spent 12 years at the studio, is also described as being at risk of redundancy.
The exact number of staff affected hasn’t been disclosed, which makes it hard to gauge how deep the cuts run. For developers, the immediate concern is the loss of experienced specialists across gameplay, technical direction, capture, and audio — the kind of roles that can be difficult to replace quickly in a production-heavy studio.
Ninja Theory had been working on Senua, the third Hellblade game, which Xbox announced at its June showcase. The layoffs also sit within a wider round of Microsoft gaming restructuring, following September cuts at Halo Studios and other studio-level changes.
“it's incredibly sad knowing that we won't get to finish what we were working on”
- what
- Ninja Theory has begun laying off staff after Xbox proposed closing the studio
- who
- GamesIndustry.biz, Xbox, Ninja Theory, and affected employees posting on LinkedIn
- when
- Xbox proposed closure on September 22; layoffs are now underway
- impact
- Gameplay, technical, capture, and audio roles are affected; headcount is unknown
Layoffs hit a studio mid-project with uncertain scope.
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